FileListingSearch is application for searching files from multiple hard drives or usb sticks in one application run. It searches file names from text files containing a files and folders listing. More than one listing file can be searched at once.

FileListingSearch is currently a windows command line application. It searches files from file listing text files and produces aggregated csv/txt file for search results.

This application arose from a need to search simultaneously from multiple hard drives (and/or usb sticks) where several drives may contain millions of files thus making search a performance critical task. (Some optimization for performance has been attempted.. possibly violating the phrase "premature optimization .." )

[http://juy.fi/blogi/searching-for-lost-files-with-filelistsearch/] ( http://juy.fi/blogi/searching-for-lost-files-with-filelistsearch/)

1. you need to create text files containing list of files and folders for all hard drives you wish to search files from.

• this is how it is done: navigate to the drive in command prompt and issue this command: (you may modify the file name to your preference)
  • dir /S /-C : > drive_filelisting.txt
• for example if you want to make a listing from usb stick found in drive G: you could make following command:
  • dir /S /-C G: > g_usb_drive_listing.txt
• Note that this application currently works ONLY on English windows os with this specific dir command options: /S /-C

2. then issue command for searching the file listings: FileListingSearch.exe --search=searchterm --resultfile=searchresults_for_searchterm.csv --listingfiles=g_usb_drive_listing.txt

replace the option values: searchterm, searchresults_for_searchterm.csv, g_usb_drive_listing.txt

FileListSearch.exe --help:

Usage: FileListSearch options

--search and --listingfiles options required

• -s [ --search ] arg search string
• -l [ --listingfiles ] arg file listings
• -c [ --casesensitive ] arg (=0) casesensitive search true/false
• -f [ --filetype ] arg (=file) file type to search (file, directory or both)
• -r [ --resultfile ] arg (=auto) results output file name (auto means automatically generated file name with format: results_for_searchTerm_searchte rm.txt )
• -y [ --year ] arg filter by year: yyyy
• -m [ --monthyear ] arg filter by monthyear with format mm.yyyy
• -d [ --date ] arg filter by date with format dd.mm.yyyy
• -z [ --size ] arg filter by size. Example: -z">1M", -z"<100k" or -z"g1M" -z"s100k". You can also make a range like this -z">100k <2M" (use allways double quotes!)
• -u [ --fullpath ] arg (=0) fullpath included in results
• -b [ --searchby ] arg (=filename) searchtype (filename, by_directory_name, duplicate or cdtree) filename = regular file name search, by_directory_name = list all files in directories that match search term, duplicate = search for file duplicates (date, size, filename match) cdtree = search cdtree format csv file
• -x [ --fileextension ] arg (=*) file extension filter for search default to any
• -n [ --fileextensioncase ] arg (=0) file extension filter casesensitive defaults to false (= case insensitive)
• -e [ --timestamp ] arg (=0) include timestamp in auto generated result file name
• -o [ --overwrite ] arg (=0) overwrite results file by default in case it exists
• -t [ --cdtreefilenameflag ] arg (=cdtree) if this string found in the file name switch to cdtree search function
• -i [ --exposeoptions ] arg (=0) list all option values to terminal
• --help produce help message

You need [http://www.boost.org/] ( http://www.boost.org/ ) library to compile this. Tested with Visual Studio 2013, windows 8.1

replace <AdditionalIncludeDirectories> and <AdditionalLibraryDirectories> values in FileListSearch.vcxproj project file for your boost paths

Download link for compiled exe can be found from blog post: [http://juy.fi/blogi/searching-for-lost-files-with-filelistsearch/] ( http://juy.fi/blogi/searching-for-lost-files-with-filelistsearch/)

• internationalization: time zones, operating system languages
• smart pointers
• further performance optimization
• parallel code
• linting
• memory leak checks
• more search options: regex, date ranges
• splitting date, size into csv
• GUI
• post processing option: duplicate removal
• metadata analysis and filters